


What dreams may come

by reclusiveq



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Comfort, Fluff, Forgiveness, Hopeful Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 14:03:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3329030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reclusiveq/pseuds/reclusiveq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky meet for the first time in the afterlife.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What dreams may come

**Author's Note:**

> I did not tag for mcd as they start out in the afterlife already. If you think it still needs that tag, let me know and I will add it.
> 
> ***inspired by the movie What Dreams May Come. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it, but with a disclaimer as there is a theme of suicide and depression.

When Bucky opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was a complete lack of pain. Considering that he had just had his left arm blown off while attempting to drag a man to safety, that came as something of a shock. In fact, as Bucky lay there on his back, looking up at a perfectly blue sky, it was the things he didn't hear, didn't smell, and didn't see that told him what might have happened. No guns going off in his ear, threatening to make him deaf, no cannons or grenades exploding around him. The air wasn't full of dirt and ash and residue, choking him and making it difficult to breathe. There wasn't the smell of death and illness clinging to him. The only scent that drifted towards Bucky was the sweet aroma of flowers after a morning rain. The air was fresh and crisp, not too hot and not too cold. The only sounds Bucky could hear was the sounds of the wind blowing through the bushes and the grass, the distance warble of a pair of birds, a child's laughter, and a low humming, as if someone singing quietly to themselves.

Bucky sat up finally and looked around. It was a garden of some sort, and definitely not the war zone he'd been in only moments ago. Or had it been moments? It suddenly felt like a lifetime ago. Did they win the war? At the very least, Bucky hoped the man he had risked his life for had survived.

"You look confused," said a voice behind him. Bucky craned his head around to peer at the speaker. The voice belonged to a young man who couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen, with eyes the color of a summer sky and hair the color of corn silk.

Bucky realised he was staring and looked away. "Not confused. I'm dead, right?"

"That's right. I'm... Well, I was Steve. I don't know how that works here."

"Steve works for me. Bucky."

Steve raised an eyebrow. "Your parents named you Bucky?" There was a twitch at the corner of his mouth, as Steve tried to hide a grin.

Bucky's heart skipped a beat as Steve failed to hold back his teasing smile. It wasn't anything Bucky had been unaccustomed to while alive. The teasing smile of a young blonde, both male and female, had always been a weakness of his, if wrong. But why should it happen here, when he was dead? 

"No, punk. They named me James. Do you know how many James there were in school? I chose Bucky."

"Well, no accounting for taste," Steve said, his grin stretching ear to ear.

Bucky laughed, he couldn't help himself. The noise sounded foreign to him, and the laughter died a moment later. It had been far too long since he'd had a good laugh. "All right, Steve. So what's the deal here? Are we in limbo, waiting judgment?"

Steve shook his head, thinking about it a moment. "We're waiting on something. I just don't know what."

"Are there others here?"

"Sometimes, but mostly it's just me. You're the first one that I've spoken to. Come on, I'll show you around."

It was only when Bucky stood that he realised how small Steve was. Not just short, but skinny and frail. Yet despite that, Bucky could tell Steve had an inner strength as well. "How did you die?" He blurted out, without thinking.

The smile on Steve's face dimmed a bit and Bucky immediately regretted asking. "You don't have to answer."

"No," Steve said. "It's fine." He took a deep breath, a gesture that was more to prepare himself than actually needing to breathe. As they walked, Bucky learned Steve's story - how he had been born sick and had constant health problems. How he persevered despite being bullied and picked on. How one day, after a particularly brutal beating, Steve's body just gave out. Bucky kept glancing at him and while Steve sounded like it didn't bother him, Bucky could see a pained look in his eyes.

He didn't say sorry. The gesture felt hollow even thinking about it. Instead he said, "Bullies are assholes."

That surprised a laugh out of Steve. "Yeah, they are. What about you? How did you die?"

"A bomb during the war." And that led to Bucky tell Steve about the war, about his men and friends, who had called themselves the Howling Commandos. How Gabe had been wounded and Bucky had refused to leave him behind and had been caught by a bomb because of it. As he talked about them, Bucky found himself missing them, and wondering if they had all made it safely home. "I don't even know if we won," he said. "I just hope it was all worth it."

Steve placed a hand on Bucky's arm. "I'm sure it was."

They fell into silence for the rest of their walk. Bucky wasn't sure how long or how far they went. The sun never went down, and neither of them felt tired, and the quiet stretched out before them. Eventually it got unbearable for both of them, so Bucky started telling Steve about other aspects of his life, from his family to school. Even living through the depression, when the stock market crashed and suddenly there was never enough food for the family of six.

"We both lived in Brooklyn around the same time," Steve pointed out. "We might have passed each other in the street."

"That's true, but I think I would have noticed you."

"Why? Because I'm..." Steve waved his hand at himself.

"Yes and no," Bucky said, unsure if he should elaborate. If he was stuck here for eternity, he didn't want to be stuck alone. He glanced up at the sky, still that perfect blue that felt like it was taunting him now. What did he ever do to deserve this place? "I'm queer and you're my type." There, he'd said it. He couldn't look at Steve though.

Steve was only quiet for a moment, as if he understood that the silence could make things worse. "So you like guys, huh?"

"Both, actually. Guys, girls, it's all the same to me." Bucky risked looking at Steve, who was just watching him curiously. "Look, I know I'm going to hell. Priest's already gone through the whole spiel, but I could never ask forgiveness for something like this. I mean, is it really fair that I have to 'Hail Mary' my way to forgiveness for something I wasn't given a choice for?" Bucky realised he was starting to get defensive and bit his tongue.

Steve stepped around to face Bucky, and slipped his arms around Bucky's waist. The gesture surprised Bucky and he blinked down at Steve. "I don't know about any of that, but I don't think it's wrong. And if it is, then I'm as guilty as you. I don't have a 'type' really, but I like you." He leaned up and kissed Bucky.

If they had still been alive, the kiss would have left Bucky breathless. Without the need to breathe, Bucky felt he could have kept kissing Steve for the rest of eternity. Well, shit, Bucky had always figured he was bound for hell anyway, between the men he'd killed during the war and the men he'd fucked. If the priest was right, then no amount of begging would do him any good now, so why not enjoy the ride to perdition?

Eventually, they did stop. Steve sat in the grass and tugged Bucky’s hand to sit next to him. Bucky sat and pulled Steve into his arms, never wanting to let him go. “I wouldn’t be unhappy if this was my eternity,” he said. “No more pain, no more war, just… this.”

Steve smiled. “Same.”

~~~  
Bucky lost track of the time. Sometimes the two of them spent it just holding each other, other times they walked hand in hand. They’d even discovered it was possible to make love and Bucky swore that if he hadn’t already been dead, that Steve would have been the death of him – he was that good. 

Bucky still couldn’t quite forgive himself for feeling this way, or for a great many other things, but these moments with Steve felt pure and real, and Bucky didn’t want to cheapen them with doubt and worry.

When they weren’t sharing a companionable silence or making love, they talked about their lives, their dreams, everything. “I wanted to be an artist,” Steve said one time, when they were cuddling by the edge of a pool of water. “But I also wanted to protect people. When I was ten, I saw some older boys picking on a girl. I tried to stop them, but they beat me up. I think it was always one of my biggest regrets, not being strong enough to protect people. I did my best and it was never good enough. I remember the last thing I wished for as I died was that if I could be given a second chance, I’d want to be stronger.”  
“Strength isn’t all physical, you know.”

Steve laughed, a tinge of bitterness to the sound. “That’s sounds like something a normal guy would say.”

“I’m serious. Strength helps, sure, but it’s useless if you don’t stand up for what you believe in. Sounds like you always did, no matter the consequences. That’s the sort of strength that inspires men. You would have been a hell of a leader.”

Steve twisted his head to look at Bucky, as if judging his sincerity. “Thanks, Buck. That… actually makes me feel a lot better.” If Bucky was any judge, he would have said that a weight had been lifted from Steve’s shoulders, although he really didn’t know why. Still, he was glad, for whatever comfort he could bring Steve.

“What did you wish for,” Steve asked. “When you died.”

“I didn’t wish for anything,” Bucky answered. “What’s the point?”

“Well, don’t you have regrets?”

“Hell yeah. Everybody does. Everyone has things they can’t forgive themselves for. But I’m already dead. It’s too late to do anything about that stuff.”

“Then why not forgive yourself?”

Bucky shrugged. “The stuff I did… You can’t be forgiven for.”

“What, you mean being queer?” Steve sat up to look at Bucky. Bucky gave him a tight smile.

“No, not that. I think I’ve come to terms with that. No, during the war… I killed a lot of people, and they weren’t always the bad guys. Even if it was a mistake, it’s not the sort of thing you can forget. Or forgive. So no, there’s nothing I wished for myself. At least, that’s what I would have said before.”

“And now?”

“I think, if I could somehow be forgiven, if I could only have one wish, it’d be you.” Bucky wasn’t sure where that had come from, but he knew it was true. “To never forget you, or lose you.”

Steve smiled. “Well, here I am.”

Bucky returned the smile. “Yeah.”

~~~  
Bucky woke some time later to a change in the air. He was all too familiar with this feeling, then feeling that everything was about to change for the worse. It was the calm before the storm, before the Axis launched a surprise attack, before he held some other soldier in his arms as they died. And it was not something that should exist if this was truly paradise.

Outwardly, nothing had changed. Steve was still by his side. But there was definitely something there. Bucky found himself feeling anxious for the first time since he’d died. Steve stirred in his arms and blinked up at him. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, I don’t know. Feels like something is about to happen. You don’t feel it?” Bucky stood up and glanced around with a worried frown.

Steve shook his head. “Actually for the first time, I feel completely at peace.”

Looking back down at Steve, somehow Bucky just _knew_ what was happening. He dropped to his knees quickly and grabbed Steve’s hands, holding back tears. He could just barely make out the line of his own hands through Steve’s. Steve was fading.

“Oh,” Steve said, staring at their hands. Steve’s voice sounded steady, but his hands were shaking slightly.

“I knew it was too good to be true,” Bucky said, his own voice just as steady as Steve’s, belying the sea of emotions he was feeling inside. 

Steve leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. “You’re wrong, Bucky. I understand now. It’s a second chance at life. You’ll get it too.”

“How?”

“All you have to do is forgive yourself and accept who you are. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before, but it all makes sense now.”

“How can I forgive myself?”

"You will find a way. You never give up.”

Bucky looked up at Steve, then pulled him into his arms, holding him tight as thought it would keep Steve here. “No matter what, I swear to you, I will never forget you. I will find you again. That’s my wish. I’ll be with you to the end of the line.”

Steve smiled and kissed him as he continued to fade, until Bucky was left holding nothing but air. Bucky pounded the ground with his fists in frustration. He wouldn’t give Steve up that easily. Whatever it took, he would find him again.

~~~  
“You are crazy, James,” Natasha said, punching his shoulder. “Flying all this way just to see some famous artist.”

James grinned at her, though the truth was, he was feeling very anxious. Ever since he’d first read about the child prodigy – an openly bisexual artist who painted incredible scenes of Heaven – James had felt a connection to him, almost as though they had known each other in a previous life. Well, if James even believed in that sort of thing. 

But one of Steve’s most recent paintings had featured a figure that looked just a bit like James. So maybe James shouldn’t doubt all that new age stuff that people were constantly spewing at him at school. It wasn’t as though this connection to Steve was a new feeling for James anyway. He’d felt like this since he was six and had seen the other boy in a magazine, declaring, with all the innocence of a child, that he was going to marry Steve someday.

At six, that declaration had been cute. Ten years later, there had been no change to James’ feelings, but he had learned to keep them to himself.

“Maybe I am crazy,” James pointed out. “But you came with me, Nat. You can’t be that concerned.”  
Natasha scoffed teasingly. “I just like New York, not to mention Mom and Dad would never have let you come alone. Also, once you fall flat on your face in front of this guy, I will have license to tease you for the next year.”

James laughed. “You would do that anyway. Isn’t that the point of family?” He glanced at the address on the flyer, then pointed. “It’s that building, I think.”  
They ran across the street and tried not to stare as an imperious looking man in a fancy suit opened the door for them to the art gallery. James swallowed as he stepped inside. Neither of them were dressed fancy enough for this place. Hell, he was only sixteen. This was clearly a place for adults. And Steve was twenty. Clearly too old to deal with the affections of a crazy teenager.

James was about to turn tail and run when he heard a small murmur and looked up to see the man himself come out of the back, wearing torn jeans and an old t-shirt that looked a size too small, showing off broad shoulders and firm muscles, both articles of clothing stained with paint. If James had thought he looked out of place, Steve looked even more so in this fancy area. 

All hesitation left him and he moved forward with more speed than he would have thought possible. “Excuse me,” James said, clearing his throat. “You’re Steve, right?”

Steve looked at him, and for a moment, James thought he saw a hint of surprise. A smile spread across Steve’s face, and James basked in how bright that smile was, and how familiar. James definitely had seen this smile aimed at him before. “Yes, I am. And you are?”

“James Barnes. But you can call me Bucky.”

**Author's Note:**

> I went backwards with steve being the one who forgot Bucky, but i hope you still liked this redemption fic. How did Bucky finally forgive himself? I guess he just wanted to be with steve that badly. :)


End file.
